Newcastle man gets prison term in locker-room theft scam

Gabriel Jang, 37, of Newcastle was sentenced to eight and a half years in prison Friday in U.S. District Court for his part in a locker-room theft scam.

Court records say members of the conspiracy would go to work-out facilities and fitness centers in Washington, Oregon and as far away as Georgia.

They would break into lockers and steal credit cards. Jang provided mobile computer equipment to quickly make false identity documents, such as driver’s licenses, to be used with the stolen credit cards.

The stolen cards and fake IDs were used to buy high-end electronics, which Jang fenced on eBay. Court documents say that PayPal records show that Jang’s account received more than $3 million from April 2001 to August 2008.

Jang recruited the thieves, provided them with equipment and paid them half the face value of the electronics they bought, according to court documents.

He will spend five years on supervised release after getting out of prison. He was also ordered to forfeit three houses bought with the proceeds of the scam, $116,527 in cash and hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of stolen goods.